Silicon Power did an excellent job with its XS70 Series Gen4 model which resulted in some great speeds for the price. So it isn’t much of a surprise when we get our hands on a great entry-level option that does all the same, despite it being a slower model (I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on “slow” though since it is still NVMe and still far better than any SATA alternatives). In that, we have been testing out the Silicon Power UD90 Gen 4×4 PCIe NVMe SSD for some time now and have liked every bit of it.
It’s actually been quite a number of weeks that we have had it on-site, testing it for various tasks such as using it as a boot drive in a laptop or as an external drive using a USB4 enclosure (to name a few). Each time, it delivered right where we wanted it to (or expected it to based on the specs of the drive and the parts we were using). We’ve actually been waiting for it to start popping up in the market before we released our own thoughts about it.
The UD90 looks to be a step up from the company’s previous model in the series (the UD80) and carries the Gen 4×4 badge, bringing with it faster speeds at the same great price point. How great? You are looking at just $89 for the 1TB model (the model we have been testing).
It doesn’t come with a heatsink or anything fancy. Just an NVMe tucked into simple packaging. Perfect for laptops or if you have your own heatsinks to play with. Or, an external enclosure. Of course, you may get slower speeds if you go that route depending on the hardware you choose.
The new drive pulls off read speeds of up to 4,800MB/s as well as write speeds of up to 4,200MB/s. Making for a great place to be within this price range. It’s fast and affordable all in one. It won’t take on the XS70 head-to-head, but it will come pretty close. Again, close enough for the money.
It’s a single-sided NVMe (you don’t step much into double-sided territory till you hit 2TB+) that fits nicely into any computer system or enclosure. Not something to be used with the PS5 due to specs, but great for everything else. Keeping in mind, of course, that this is still an entry-level drive for its class.
The drive would originally be made available for up to 1TB, starting from 250GB (250GB, 500GB, and 1TB to be exact). However, it only seems to have launched as a single 1TB option. Honestly, for the price point, this seems like the most profitable plan at this price, as you don’t need much else outside of (maybe) the 500GB model for ultra-low budgets and simple builds.
Regardless of the path the company chooses to take for the other capacity options that are missing (for now), it is nice to see the drive hit the market finally. Actually, it appears to have been available on Amazon for almost a month now. However, we were able to find it until just now (and even then, it took quite the search to hunt it down as it wasn’t obvious).
As mentioned, it did pretty well with everything we threw at it. It isn’t the fastest NVMe out there (of course), but it ranks quite nicely for the price. It has a long warranty too, which is something to point out. 5 years is a pretty good warranty to have on any drive, let it be spinning or solid state.
We will continue using it for various purposes and it will likely end up being mentioned again as we pair it side by side with other options.
Our Conclusion
It is fast (enough), it is affordable, and it is finally available. You can get your hands on it right now and you should if you are looking to build a low-cost system that still has plenty of speed compared to older PCIe Gen 3 models. It rated quite highly for us for entry-level solutions. If Silicon Power keeps this up, we are going to soon see noticeable price drops in some of the major brands out there as they try to keep up.
Additional Images:
Specifications:
- Capacity: 250GB, 500GB, 1TB
- Dimensions: 22.0mm x 80.0mm x 3.5mm
- Weight: 8g
- Interface: PCIe Gen 4×4
- Performance Read(max.): up to 4,800MB/s
- Performance Write(max.): up to 4,200MB/s
- Operating Temperature: 0C – 70C
- MTBF (est): 1,500,000 hours
- Shock Resistance Test: 1500g/0.5ms
- Certification: CE, FCC, UKCA, BSMI, Green dot, WEEE, RoHS, KC
- Warranty: 5-year limited warranty
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